Both the L. A. Daily News and the Los Angeles Times have run stories regarding a company called Optin Global Inc., which has been given a temporary restraining order from a San Francisco judge in regards to allegedly sending out spam emails. The judge has also frozen their assets. The Federal Trade Commission made the accusation after receiving 1.8 million consumer complaints against Optin Global.
Optin Global and its partner Media Limited Corp. has been accused by the FTC of sending out unsolicited mass emails regarding home mortgages, travel deals and prescription drugs. According to the FTC, the emails are fraudulent because the sender information is falsified, they fail to offer the consumer a way to opt-out, they contain false subject lines and are not marked as advertisements plus a few other violations put in place to thwart spam.
According to John Chu, attorney for Optin Global, his clients are innocent because “They are the middlemen” in this operation. Chu is pointing the finger at Optin Global’s 100 email marketing subcontractors who may have sent out the illegal emails.
These articles bring up some good points in regards to opt-in email companies of which there are many. Typically an opt-in email company will gather lists of opt-in email addresses where consumers have actually requested that they be contacted via email or newsletter for additional information about a product or service. The opt-in email company will gather the list and then sell the list to online marketers who will, in turn, send out the actual emails and newsletters.
So the question, which has not been answered so far in this case, is did Optin Global gather and sell its lists or did they give their lists to their 100 subcontractors and order them to send out emails which violated the 2004 anti-spamming federal legislation? Did one of the subcontractors become a rogue spammer unbeknownst to Optin Global or did Optin Global have knowledge of the methods that were being used to deliver these emails?
If all of these emails originated as opt-in emails (as the name Optin Global suggests), then why use spammy techniques to deliver them? Apparently these are the questions that San Francisco U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti and the FTC also want to know. A hearing is scheduled for May 10, so we’ll learn more at this time.
